


Once in a Lifetime

by Switchbladesis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Novakfest, Thingstiel, Vessel Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:28:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Switchbladesis/pseuds/Switchbladesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Goldilockstiel And The Three Novaks. (In Jimmy, his thoughts; In Amelia, his words; In Claire, his grace.).  Or, Jimmy cooks some pasta, Amelia takes a bath, and Claire jumps off a boat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once in a Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ferricent](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Ferricent).



> For Ferricent on lj, using his prompts: _Goldilockstiel And The Three Novaks. (In Jimmy, his thoughts; In Amelia, his words; In Claire, his grace.)_ and _Claire will never be seasick. (She remembers being an ocean.)_. Kind of. It’s a little bit of a loose interpretation. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Many, Many thanks to and her incredibly speedy beta. She's the reason why this kind of makes some sense now.

**Past**

Here's what Jimmy knows: he has faith. His faith is founded in reason. He believes what he believes due to logic, not apart from it. Faith and reason bring him to action. To feel the glory of God, to glimpse his power and his love and yet not be moved to act on them would be blasphemy.

So he does what he is asked, all that he is asked, and he does so gladly, without a wish for anything but to be asked for more. There is a dangerous yearning there, still, well-intended but etched with pride. He could do more, he could accomplish so much more if he were called upon, and yet, it is not his place to decide what he can do. So he spends his life quietly, does what he believes is right, lives by God’s commandments, and knows that what he does is God’s will.

When Castiel tells him that angels are soldiers of God, beings of distilled purpose and pure righteous fury, Jimmy accepts it without question. What else would they be?

Castiel explains this to him as if he were young child, or maybe a stranger or a previously unrealized creature. There’s a hesitance there, the kind that he can hear in his own voice when Claire asks a question whose answer she can’t understand. Only there is no attempt at familiarity between them, only cold logic. He appears in his mind as fire, as cold stone and burning wheels and steel wings and radio waves, and Jimmy never doubts that Castiel is any of those things and others besides. Jimmy asks questions sometimes, but mostly he listens. _Yes, there is a divine plan. Yes, God is absolute. Yes, there will be peace. Yes, there are plans for you._

 _No, you will not be harmed. Yes, you will be rewarded with paradise._

Sometimes, Castiel asks things of him. The challenges come unexpectedly, rise up slowly from the depths of his consciousness, a subtle shift in perception that changes white noise and static into the word of the Lord. This time he’s cooking dinner, and Castiel’s voice comes from the twin sounds of radio static and hissing water. _You will come to no harm_ , he says. _I will protect you. I can prove it to you. But you must trust me, you must do as I say, when I say._

Jimmy says yes. He does what he’s asked, as he always does. He feels the heat on his bare arms, sees the water bubble up and feels the condensation as it mixes with sweat on his face. But it is his hand that’s in the water, and his hand that feels no pain, shows no signs of scarring, does not blister. It is saved. It is the impossible: proof that he is saved.

After he passes this ordeal, he thinks it may be the most important thing he has accomplished. More important than any graduation, any placard from work could ever hope to be. More important than his home he’s grown, or his wife, who drops her groceries and stares at him with horror.

She will understand someday. He has faith.

***  
 **Present**

When Amelia steps into the bathroom and finds a warm bath already drawn for her, she’s touched. Claire had just run past her down the stairs, late to some meeting or another and some friend’s car waiting outside. Amelia had been exhausted lately, between work and Claire and the mounting bills. She hadn’t thought of taking a bath in years. Who had the time?

She thinks of taking her book with her, but ends up just getting in, letting the warm water rush over her skin, letting it work on the muscles and aches she didn’t even realize she had. It’s nice to be given permission to relax for a second. The bath is simple yet effective.

She ends up falling asleep there, waking up hours later in the cool water, skin wrinkled and whitish. She gets up, dries, and puts on a bathrobe she didn’t even know she had. She pads over to Claire’s room to find her already in bed. Amelia smiles and promises that she’ll thank Claire tomorrow.

The pile of hamburgers waiting for Amelia when she gets home the next day eventually goes to waste. Claire had decided to become vegetarian a few months back, so it hadn’t even occurred to her that the burgers were real. Amelia doesn’t exactly have the time or money for two separate meals. She had thought the burgers was some art project of Claire’s until Claire stomped up to her room to complain about all of the dead flesh on the kitchen table, and by that time the wayward dinner was stone cold and had started to collect flies. Into the garbage they go.

On the third day, she finds the leaky valve in the bathroom sink repaired and the stairs have stopped creaking as she walks on them. She listens to the morning radio show -a habit of Jimmy’s that Amelia keeps up, though she’s not interested in who’s buying spots at 7am- and hears tales of miracle cures and divine wrath everywhere. And suddenly, all the little changes in the house make sense. While she doesn’t think of herself as particularly good, or impoverished or undeserving, she can think of a few beings that might take a special interest in her family.

So, she’s not completely surprised when she opens the door to find her husband’s body on the other side, but her surprise does not stop her from immediately slamming it closed.

Castiel, of course, simply knocks again.

She opens the door slowly. Takes in the straight back and earnest features. Had he had a partner, she would have taken him for a Mormon. Her husband, in all his piety, never stood like that.

“Yes?” she ventures, not really knowing how to greet the creature that stole her husband, cured lepers, and fixed her floorboards.

“Amelia, your family has given much in service to me. I now have the power to reward your faith. Do you wish anything more?” His eyes are wide. He seems so sincere.

“The bath was nice,” says Amelia, a little absently. Her mind is racing, trying to right itself, find context. It feels like a dream.

Castiel nods. “Anything else you desire?” he presses.

She doesn’t know what to say. "Did you have anything to do with the pony found grazing in Humiston Park the other day?" comes out, anyway.

"It was a miniature horse,” Castiel corrects, a little testily. “And I told Applejack to stay put until Claire got home."

“But why?”

“I told you. I have recently come into power. I wish to reward the faithful just as I punish the wicked. It is only right.”

It doesn’t make sense. Since when had Castiel cared about the ruins he left behind? Amelia stares at him, notices the wear in his features. He looks like he’s being eaten from the inside. Or rather, that his body, whatever’s left of her husband, is. She wonders what’s on the other side of the thin pieces of muscles, what’s pushing out.

She thinks of the gifts, the small favors she’s receiving. And Amelia remembers Jimmy. The wonder in Jimmy’s voice whenever he spoke of Castiel. As if his life had gained purpose, as if he had been given everything he’d wished for.

Amelia’s always been the more practical sort. She doesn’t need a grand purpose as much as a roof over her head. If she were to ask for anything, it would be this: small irritants wiped away, and time for a few small comforts in her life. But why would he do this? What could he want from her? She’s useless to him. It was in Jimmy’s blood, not hers.

Claire.

“You’re not getting my daughter.”

“Does Claire want to leave?” Castiel looks so visibly confused by this, the crease between his eyebrows reappearing and making him look, just for a second, so much like Jimmy that it hurts, even as she feels the urge to laugh. But the reality of the situation still stands, and she forces herself to focus.

“You can’t take her again. I won’t let you.”

That gets a reaction. Castiel looks almost angry at the suggestion. “This vessel is fine. Your husband is doing an admirable job. I—,“ He breaks off, attention suddenly elsewhere. His eyes leave Amelia’s face to search the sky. “What are they?-Death.”

And then, abruptly, he vanishes, leaving Amelia to argue with the metal handrail and concrete steps.

She takes the interruption for what it is, a temporary reprieve, and runs up to Claire’s room. She’s laying on her bed, textbooks and notebooks spread out in front of her, her cell phone poking out from underneath a pillow, the screen still lit. She’d been sneaking in texts again. Claire looks up, glaring.

The sight is so normal that Amelia feels awkward having worried at all. “I... just wanted to check on how you were doing. Everything okay?,” she asks.

“Yeah, mom. The evil chemistry assignment hasn’t gotten its wily hands on me yet.” Claire immediately turns back toward her textbooks, her hand sneaking under the pillow to clutch her phone.

Amelia smiles, nods. She tries to will herself to leave the room. “Nothing.. strange has happened to you lately? You haven’t heard anything? Claire, remember our agreement, you’d tell me, right?”

“No, mom...” Something turns, dawns on her. “Wait. Who was at the door?”

It’s hours later before she can bring herself to leave the room again. Amelia’s blouse is covered in tears, her face is raw, sticky. She’s washing herself off in the bathroom sink when she notices that something’s wrong, slightly off about the scene behind her in the mirror. The curtain’s pulled back, and the tub is filled. Slowly, carefully, as if the water might turn to acid at a moment’s notice, she wills her arm into the water. It’s gone cold waiting for her. She lifts the drain and watches as the water slowly runs out. There’s no other sound.

The next morning, Amelia turns on the radio and hears about the massacre in Senator Walker’s offices. She listens to the upstairs creak under Claire’s light footsteps and wills everything to as it is now, as it should be. No more.

***  
 **Future**

Claire’s friends dutifully tell her that the radio stations suck up here. They’re too far away from Gorham to get the college radio, and the rest is just junk: country and biblical revival and Clear Channel.

“It’s best that we go with our own music and hook up an ipod with a speaker set,” Kat informs her, gathering up a few things and putting them by the front door. “It’s perfectly fine, we can keep them dry.”

Claire has a week between when the dorms kick her out and her new lease starts, and hanging out at Kat’s, eating her parents’s food was a great deal cheaper than the plane ticket home. Dave from poly-sci only lives a few miles away, he’ll come down and hang out. Everyone assures here that the visit is a great idea, not an imposition at all. Even her mother tried to convince her to go to Maine instead of Illinois, even if she had to keep her voice steady when she said it.

So Claire allowed herself to go. She’s excited. She hasn’t had a proper sleepover since since her father left.

Kat’s dictating the activities. Pointing out her favorite spots, taking her to meet her high school friends. They’d laughed when they’d found out Claire had never seen an ocean. She hadn’t been to Lake Michigan since she was a child. That’s a lake, it doesn’t count. Not Florida? Not New York City? Philadelphia, Washington, DC? Boston’s only a few hours drive from campus, you never went?

There are so many answers she could give, all of them true. _I work weekends and don’t have a car. My mother didn’t get paid time off until my junior year of high school. Have you ever been to Illinois? A layover in O’Hare doesn’t count. My mother doesn’t like sleeping in unfamiliar beds or being in rooms where she doesn’t understand where the exits are. I don’t blame her. There was that time when we thought a god was after us, and we were right._

But all the answers will just make things awkward. Reminders of differences that her friends don’t really understand, or things that just make her sound insane rather than just quirky. So she just smiles and says “I never had the time.”

She has the time now, apparently. It’s still cold for to be out at sea, this far north. It’s the beginning of May, and Claire swears that she still saw a stubborn piece of black snow on the way over. When Claire brought it up to Kat, she laughed.

“Probably. I’m just glad it’s not snowing right now. It’s done that, a few times. Usually not enough to stick, but that doesn’t make us any happier to see it.”

They meet up at the marina, coolers in hand, and Dave tries to give Claire a quick tour that Claire completely ignores in favor of the view and the sound of the waves clashing _Claire, Claire, Claire_. They get out in the boat, knees banging against one another, hooded sweatshirts on over their bathing suits. It’s not too cold, the sun feels warm after the long winter months, and part of her wants to offer as much skin as possible to the light and soak up all the rays.

They go out just a little ways, shoreline still in sight, before they cut off the motor and get out the beer. It is then, the ocean stretching out like the cornfields in Emington before her, that Claire finally allows herself to focus on the grace in the ocean.

They were still travelling up the turnpike when she first felt the tug. It happened sometimes. Like calls to like, and the hole in her soul that Castiel tore open with his grace is filled with shrapnel. She senses other places that he has been at the oddest times, remembers how an extinct plant tastes when she looks at a fossil, or she sees a smile that reminds her of something she saw on the face of a Canaanite millennia ago. She knows how the wind feels as it blows over the desert, though she could not describe it if anyone were to ask.

Claire is aware that these sensations make her act strangely sometimes, that sometimes she’ll talk about things that she can’t possibly know, or find random things interesting for no reason. She knows that half of the reason why Kat hangs out with her is to see what she will do next. She’s stopped trying to fight it, letting herself indulge in the sensation for a little while. She thinks she would go insane if she ignored it all together.

She wonders if it went both ways: if Castiel remembers episodes of _Dora the Explorer_ from her childhood. Did they call to him? Did he try to access them, the way that she accesses his? Or were they annoyances to him, did he try to pick them out like shards of glass?

It is no use asking now. He is gone, he will never be back. All that is left are the flecks of grace. And yet, when she senses a part of him, no matter how small, she cannot help but to follow, to hope.

The salt in the air seeps into her skin and it coats her lungs as she breathes. The waves lap greedily at the sides of the boat. The rest are opening their bottles of Sam Adams, complaining about Massholes and telling jokes about the county. She lets them, absentmindedly reaching down towards the water as their words wash over her. The water tries to jump near her fingers but she's not nearly close enough.

It's a split second decision but not one she thinks she will regret.

It’s an odd little dive into the water, this close, and the boat lifts slightly with the splash. She can feel a little bit of tension the second she hits before the water says _yes yes yes_ , lets her sink in. A little bit of ocean slips past her lips, tries to invade her as she is invading it, and it tastes like grace, caramel rich and boiling heat in her mouth. It feels different from any lake she’d been in the past. She feels lighter but the water is stronger. Pushing and pulling, making her float and sing. Caressing her. Grabbing her for keeps and then lifting her up in its arms. It’s tempting, just for a second, to let the tide pull her down, to sink deeper into the ocean.

But then Kat’s screaming at her even as she’s laughing. “It’s too cold, you freak, you’ll freeze to death!”. And it occurs to her that she should be cold in these grey-blue waters, but the little bits of grace warm her, keep her from harm.

They remind her of what could have been. A life filled with grace and fire. But that’s gone now, that can never be. This is what she gets from now on.

She lets her friends grab her by the shoulders and pull her back onto the boat, water sadly clinging to her, slowly slipping off. She’s cold now, the heat of the remaining grace gone, her body covered in goosebumps. She laughs, shucks off her waterlogged hoodie, and only turns back once, in parting with the vast sea.


End file.
